‘Yeah, That’s Illegal’: USPS Chief Says States Won't Receive Mail Ballots Unless They Hand Voter Rolls to Trump

Postmaster General David Steiner drew the ire of Democratic senators and voting rights advocates on Wednesday when he said that the US Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots in states that do not hand their voter files to the Trump administration.

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the panels ranking member, asked Steiner if USPS would deliver ballots in a state whose government had refused the Trump administration's request for access to its absentee voter list.

"Under our proposed regulation, no," Steiner replied. "We would tell the state that we need the manifest."

Peters responded by accusing USPS of creating a rule that "coerces" states into handing their voter files to the federal government even though they are under no legal obligation to do so.

"You're making a decision that people cannot vote by mail," Peters said. "That's unacceptable."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also sparred with Steiner during the hearing, informing the postmaster general that USPS had absolutely no role to play in determining how states conduct their elections.

"You run the Postal Service, you deliver the mail," Blumenthal said. "You don't review ballots or registration. Nobody said you should... This proposed rule is bogus."

Blumenthal demanded Steiner commit to deliver all mail-in ballots to voters in his state regardless of whether it complied with the Trump administration's demands, but the postmaster general said he would not make such a commitment.

"Our proposed rule is subject to litigation," Steiner told him. "We'll see how that all turns out."

"Well, I guess we will see," Blumenthal replied, "but it will probably be in court."

Some observers reacted with shock to Steiner's willingness to go along with Trump's latest election-rigging scheme, which they said was patently unconstitutional.

"Yeah, that's illegal," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "The Post Office can’t refuse to deliver mail to try and get policy concessions."

"We have a Postmaster General who should not be in any position of trust or influence," commented political scientist Norman Ornstein, "a disgraceful traitor to American values."

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signaled his state would challenge the proposed USPS rule.

"Illinois expanded vote-by-mail because we believe voting should be easier, not harder," Pritzker wrote. "Now, Trump’s handpicked Postmaster General is threatening to withhold mail ballots unless states turn over voter rolls. That's not election security. It’s voter suppression."

Political scientist Robert E. Kelly argued that Trump's attack on mail-in voting was a "deeply malign gimmick which makes it so hard to accommodate MAGA within the US political order."

"No one thought to use the mail as a partisan weapon," Kelly wrote. "The laws and norms around mail are poorly known, because no one ever thought to try this gambit before. But now, because Trump insists on politicizing the bureaucracy, this whole thing will go to court just months before the election."